"You need to know only three things to run a successful school garden: how to cultivate people, how to cultivate plants, and where to go for help."
Linda Guy Success With School Gardens, 1994

The whole school community can be involved in designing a global garden – evaluating the site, choosing hard landscaping materials with a low carbon footprint, devising a water harvesting system, deciding what plants to include…

Starting a School Garden RHS, 2007
Useful summary of the planning required for a successful school garden project, from motivating the whole school community to design and construction.

 

 

 

 

Setting up and Running a School Garden - A Manual for Teachers, Parents and Communities FAO, 2005 KS2-3
An online manual based on experiences of setting up and running school gardens all over the world. It takes you through all the steps of planning a garden project. There are also lesson plans for children aged 9-14 years which complement garden activities. The appendices include horticultural notes and factsheets on nutrition.

 

 

Growing School Garden Teachers Resource Pack aims to help all teachers use their school gardens and grounds as a cross-curricular creative learning resource for KS1-2. Contains 22 factsheets and a wall poster.

 

 

 

 

If you have a flat roof which is strong enough to  support the weight, consider an edible green roof. The Guide to Setting up Your Own Edible Rooftop Garden, published by Alternatives in Montreal, provides comprehensive DIY advice. The ideas for irrigation is also useful for container gardening in general.

 

Success With School Gardens Linda A Guy, Cathy Cromell and Lucy K Bradley, Arizona Master Gardener Press, 1994
Thorough and practical guide which starts with cultivating support, through preparing beds to managing disease. Although written with the Arizona desert in mind, the key points apply to any school garden project, particularly when climate change brings more dry summers.

 

 

 

How to Make a Forest Garden Patrick Whitefield, Permanent Publications, 1996 £14.95 pb
Forest gardens are a low maintenance productive garden with year round interest which will enrich childrens' learning experience. This very good practical DIY guide to designing a forest garden is a good introduction to permaculture principles and includes model designs.

Permaculture: a beginner's guide Spiralseed, 2008 £8 pb
An accessible brief introduction to the principles behind permaculture, a practical approach to designing sustainable human habitats following Nature's patterns. Invaluable for creating productive school grounds which contribute to the sustainable schools doorways.

The Playground Potting Shed: A Foolproof Guide to Gardening with Children Dominic Murphy, Guardian Books 2008 £14.99 hb
The author's experience of creating a school kitchen garden will inspire and reassure new school gardeners. Includes suggestions for classroom activities.

Weblinks

Garden Organic have a very good section on starting a garden from scratch on the teaching zone of their website – from whether to dig ro making a plan.

The Growing Schools Garden provides ideas for designing a rich environment for learning outside the classroom, including growing food.

Get Your Hands Dirty is another resource produced by Growing Schools. A free cross-curricular resource pack and its downloadable web-based materials gives you ideas, practical advice, educational reasons, and case studies to help you grow plants or keep animals in your school grounds.

The RISC roof garden is a good example of a forest garden designed to maximise its educational potential.

Seed Savers has a useful powerpoint on the hows and whys of an Australian school food garden.

 

 

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